Bread.
Healthy Banana Double Chocolate Bread
Yummiest and healthy dessert we all need to have during this quarantine!
Dietary Notes: Vegetarian
Estimated Time: 60 minutes
Feeds: 6-7 people
Ingredients:
3 medium-to-large very ripe bananas
3/4 cup almond butter
5 dates + 1 teaspoon maple syrup (or honey)
1 large egg
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon table salt
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon (optional; I skip it)
1 cup (125 grams) oats (grounded to powder)
1/2 cup Dutch-process cocoa powder
1 cup (about 6 ounces or 170 grams) semisweet or bittersweet chocolate chunks or chips
1 cup walnuts (optional)
Instructions:
Heat your oven to 350°F. Butter a 9×5-inch loaf pan, or spray it with a nonstick baking spray.
Purred bananas and dates kn processor and pour the mixture in a large bowl. Whisk in almond butter, then honey, egg, and vanilla. Place baking soda, salt, cinnamon (if using), flour and cocoa powder in a sifter or fine-mesh strainer and sift over wet ingredients. (My cocoa is almost always lumpy, so this is essential for me.) Stir dry and wet ingredients with a spoon until just combined. Stir in chocolate chunks or chips and walnuts. Add a table spoon of milk, if mixture is too thick
Pour into prepared pan and bake 55 to 65 minutes, until a tester or toothpick inserted into the center of the cake comes out batter-free. (A melted chocolate chip smear is expected, however.) Cool in pan for 10 to 15 minutes, then run a knife around the edge and invert it out onto a cooling rack. Serve warm or at room temperature.
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Denver, CO, USA
Riddhika Jain
Artisan Cranberry Honey Walnut B.r.e.a.d
No-knead to panic, this is an easy & delicious recipe for artisan bread (plus you actually don't have to knead it).
Dietary Notes: Vegetarian
Estimated Time: 1 hour. Disclaimer: you need at least a day for the dough to rise
Feeds: 1 - 12 (depends on how much people enjoy bread)
Ingredients:
3 cups all purpose flour, plus 3 tablespoons
1/2 teaspoon instant yeast
2 teaspoons sea salt (regular salt works just fine)
1/2 cup chopped walnuts (or roughly that)
1 1/2 cup dried cranberries
1 1/2 cups water at room temperature
1/4 cup liquid-y honey, plus more for brushing on after baking or other vegan honey substitute
Instructions:
1. Start with a large bowl and a wooden spoon (or a rubber spatula). Add the flour to the bowl. Measure in the yeast and add it to one side of the bowl. Measure in the salt and add it to the other side.
2. Using your 'weapon of choice' (i.e spoon, spatula, or whatever you want), stir the yeast into the flour on its side of the bowl first and then stir the salt into the flour on its side of the bowl. *This will prevent the salt mixing directly with the yeast * Give the whole mixture a few good stirs to make sure everything is combined.
3. Add the cranberries and chopped walnuts to the flour mixture and toss well to coat, and to make sure they are evenly distributed.
4. Measure the water. Make sure the water is at room temperature. If the water is too warm or too cold, it can kill the yeast and prevent the bread from rising.
5. Add the honey to the water and stir with a fork to combine.
6. Pour the water in and stir. The dough will be rough and a bit sticky, but no worries that's normal. Stir until the flour is combined. This is not normal bread dough (there's no kneading involved in this recipe), so you don't need to be too concerned about the appearance of the dough at this point. Just make sure the ingredients are combined well!
7. Cover the bowl with plastic wrap, beeswrap, or a towel. Make sure there's adequate space left in the bowl for the dough to at least double in size. Place the bowl in a warm, draft-free place and let it rise for 12-18 hours.
8. After the dough has risen for 12-18 hours, preheat your oven to 450 degrees Fahrenheit or 230 degrees Celsius.
9. Place your Dutch oven with the lid on in the cold oven and let it heat up with the oven. If your dutch oven is black on the inside, set your oven to 425 degrees Fahrenheit instead of 450 ( or 218 degrees Celsius instead of 230 Celsius).
* A Dutch oven is deep covered pot. An oven-proof skillet or oven-proof soup pot can work if you don't have a Dutch oven.
10. Now back to forming the dough. Rub flour and put a generous amount on your countertop or table. Use your floured hands to gently scrape the dough away from the sides of the bowl, gathering it in your hands as best you can (it may feel quite fluid and not at all like regular bread dough). Do your best to form it into a circular loaf on your countertop. Don't worry if it still looks a little rough in places. #rustic
11. Once you have it shaped, the dough needs to undergo a second rise (much shorter than the first). The goal is to handle the dough as little as possible at this stage because any amount of tugging at the rough can cause it to deflate after it has undergone its second rise. The next few steps will help prevent this. But don't worry if it deflates a bit. This bread dough is pretty forgiving.
12. Sprinkle flour over the top of the loaf and loosely cover it with plastic wrap, bees wrap, or a towel to prevent a skin from forming over the dough. The flour also prevents the plastic wrap from sticking to the dough so when you take it off at the end of the rise, it doesn't disturb the dough and wreck the rustic shape you've created.
13. Let the dough rise for about 45 minutes. Your oven will also be preheating during this time (and so will your pot).
14. Once 45 minutes have passed remove the plastic wrap from the dough and trim the parchment paper into a circle closely around the dough. If it doesn't look like the dough has risen that much, don't worry about it. The loaf will puff up a bit when it hits the heat of the oven. Remove the preheated pot from the oven and transfer the dough into the pot as carefully as possible by handling only the parchment paper. Place the lid on the pot and return it to the oven for 30 minutes. Don't open the oven during this time, and certainly don't take the lid off the pot; the crispness of the crust develops because of the steam that builds up in the pot during this 30 minutes.
15. After 30 minutes have passed, remove the lid from the pot and continue baking for another 15 minutes. After the 15 minutes have passed, remove the pot with bread from the oven and place it on a wire rack to cool. You'll probably hear it crackling as it cools - this is normal. Brush a little extra honey on the top of the bread now, if desired.
16. If you can, wait until the bread has cooled for a bit. The bread continues to bake on the inside even after it has been removed from the oven and cutting it too early could result in the inside becoming gummy or rubbery.
Notes: Original recipe from the Busy Baker. Enjoy!!
Geneva, Switzerland
Derya Senol
Icelandic Cooked Rye Bread
Dietary Notes: Vegetarian
Feeds: However many people will eat 2 loaves
Ingredients:
Unsalted butter for greasing and serving
3 cups dark rye flour
1 ½ cups whole wheat flour
4 tsp baking powder
2 tsp salt
1 tsp baking soda
2 cups buttermilk
1 cup golden syrop
Instructions:
1. Heat oven to 200C
2. Grease 2 loaf pans with butter
3. Whisk flours, baking powder, salt, and baking soda in a bowl
4. Stir in buttermilk and syrup to form a smooth dough
5. Pour dough into prepared pans and cover with aluminum foil
6. Bake until cooked through – about 8 hours
7. Let cool slightly before enjoyed with chilled butter
Notes: Slow baking gives the sweet dark rye loaf its dense crumb and deep color. Baking the bread at a low temperature overnight mimics the traditional Icelandic method of steaming the bread in a glass or metal mold in a geothermally heated earthen pit.
And now, a story.
A Story of a Precious Bread
There once was a young woman in a service job at a rural rectory in SouthWest Iceland. One of her duties was to cook bread in natural hot springs a bit from the farm, she would bring the uncooked bread in a wood bucket, dig it in the hot earth, and retrieve the cooked one at the same time.
All these trips were on foot, and she had done this hundreds of times, since the earth cooked bread was the a big source of nourishment for a large household. But one time this short trip took an unexpected turn. When she was by the springs, just having made the switch of the uncooked bread and the freshly cooked one, a thick fog trickled down the mountains, covering everything so there was no visibility and impossible to navigate back to the farm through the landscape.
But she thought she would nevertheless try to find her way by following familiar creeks and stones she thought she recognized and started a very slow journey towards what she was sure was the right direction.
Unfortunately she got totally lost, which she realized when she had walked in circles and was clearly nowhere close to the farm. Instead she had wandered up to the moors where no human being lived – and there she spent the next three days and three nights, sleeping on the soft moss, drinking fresh rain water from stones.
At the busy rectory farm, people didn’t immediately realize that there was no bread in the house. But when they figured out they were also missing a girl, they thought some action was needed. So a small search party was sent out to look for the girl, which was found after three days in the wilderness.
When she was found, she still had the bread in the wooden bucket untouched. And many years later, when she was as an old woman, she was asked why she hadn’t taken any of it to eat and nourish herself during this long time she was lost in the mountains.
Young man, she answered the local reporter from the regional herald, when committed, you are committed! I was entrusted with this bread and I was certainly not going to eat it myself. In any case, you don’t need to be eating all the time – it’s bad manners!
Ok, said the young reporter, when you got back to the farm, do you know what happened to the bread? I suppose it was used to feed the horses - it was after all three days old! Said the old lady.
Geneva, Switzerland
Kristín Þórunn Tómasdóttir
Banana Bread
Homemade quick bread that’s a delicious, healthier option to traditional banana bread.
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Dietary Notes: Vegetarian, Lactose free
Estimated Time: 80 minutes
Feeds: 10 people
Ingredients:
2 cups flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
2 eggs
1 cup sugar
4 very ripe bananas (mashed)
1-½ teaspoons vanilla
1/2 cup applesauce (or can use vegetable oil)
1-½ teaspoons cinnamon
¼ -½ cup raisins
¼-½ cup chopped walnuts
grated orange zest (optional)
Instructions:
Preheat oven to 350 degrees (F). In a medium bowl combine flour, baking soda, baking powder, and salt. In a large bowl cream together eggs and sugar. Stir in mashed bananas, vanilla, applesauce and cinnamon (and orange zest, if using). Stir in the flour mixture, one third at a time, until just combined. Pour batter into a 9x5 loaf pan. Bake for about 1 hour.
Notes: Applesauce replaces the vegetable oil that is commonly used for quick breads, making this much healthier. I typically make my own applesauce - homemade further enhances the flavors, though store-bought applesauce will work fine, too. We really love a lot of raisins and walnuts, though you can adjust the amount according to your own preference. Dried cranberries (or other dried fruit) could be used as an alternative for the raisins.
Geneva, Switzerland
Judy Bors Davis
Irish Soda Bread
This traditional Irish Soda Bread
is easy to make and quick - no yeast involved!
Enjoy it fresh and warm from the oven!
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Dietary Notes: Vegetarian
Estimated Time: 60 minutes
Feeds: 10 people
Ingredients:
2 cups all purpose flour (keep an additional ¼ cup handy)
¼ cup sugar
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
½ tsp salt
3 Tbsp cold butter, in pieces
½ cup raisins
1 ½ tsp caraway seeds (optional)
¾ cup buttermilk*
1 egg
Instructions:
Preheat oven to 375 F (190 C). Grease a cookie sheet or line with parchment paper. Or, bread can be baked in a cast iron skillet (this is my preferred method!).
In a large bowl, combine flour, sugar, baking powder, baking soda, and salt. Cut in the butter with a fork (or pastry blender) or with your fingers until the mixture resembles coarse crumbs. Stir in raisins, caraway seeds, buttermilk, and egg until the dough is evenly moistened. If dough is too sticky, add a small amount of flour at a time until the dough can be pulled from the bowl.
Turn dough out onto a lightly floured surface, and knead gently until it is smooth. Shape into a 6-inch ball, and place on the cookie sheet or cast iron skillet
With a sharp knife, cut a ¼-inch deep cross on top of the dough. Tradition considers this to be a sign of blessing upon the bread!
Bake for 30-35 minutes, until dough is just cooked through and the top is a light golden brown.
Notes: *If you don’t have buttermilk, you can easily make your own: Use 1 Tablespoon of vinegar or lemon juice, add enough milk to measure 1 cup. Let stand for 5 to 10 minutes before using. (Note this recipe calls for ¾ cup buttermilk.)
This size loaf works well for a couple or small family, as it tastes best fresh and ends up with less leftover bread. This recipe can be easily doubled to make a larger loaf.
Geneva, Switzerland
Judy Bors Davis